Work Text:
Rumi 🐯💜
Going for a run. I have my keys, no need to wait up for me.
Mira 🌶❤️
Are you okay?
Did something happen?
I was making dinner you could've come and talked to me
Rumi??
Rumi 🐯💜
Sorry. I'll head back in a minute.
Zoey 💙🐢
be safe?
Rumi 🐯💜
Always. Promise.
Zoey 💙🐢
i love you
Rumi 🐯💜
I love you too.
At least Rumi had sent a text this time, even if she was out the door before Zoey or Mira could stop her. They'd considered following her. Finding her wouldn't be a problem, even without the gentle tug of the honmoon Zoey thought they'd have been able to find Rumi anywhere. They'd find her blind and deaf. They would be able to find her in a crowded room by the gentle shift of her breathing, or by the pull of her smile—the genuine one, not the stage one.
In the end they decided to let her have her space.
That didn’t mean they were okay with it.
Mira’s concern begat frustration when Rumi kept simply texting “I’m still fine” every half an hour that she didn’t come back. Zoey was glad to have the reassurance, at least.
The tense silence of the evening—so late it was pushing into the small hours of the morning—was finally broken by keys jingling in the lock. Zoey felt like a puppy hearing her owner return. She wanted to jump to her feet and bolt to the door, to leap into Rumi’s arms (she’d catch her, she always did). Instead, she stayed in place, feet tucked under her on the couch. Mira stopped pacing and waited, eyes on the door, face illuminated by the low light of the lamp.
Rumi closed the door quietly behind her. She stiffened when she saw Zoey and Mira, but she didn't look all that surprised. She shouldn’t, because she did this at least once a month, and every time they waited up for her even if it meant not getting any sleep until 4am.
Her braid was messy, loose strands sticking to the sheen of sweat at her forehead. For a moment the only sound was her shallow, but deepening, breathing.
When the silence got too heavy she started kicking her shoes off and said “You should’ve gone to bed.”
“You can’t keep doing this, Rumi.” Mira said flatly. Zoey knew the tone. She was doing her best to not shout.
“What? Going for a run?” Rumi’s tone aimed for light and ended up somewhere next door to unsteady.
“Going for a run on your own in the middle of the night.”
“It’s not like I’m in danger.” Rumi said, looping her keys onto the hook by the door.
Mira took a deep breath.
Zoey still remembered the first time her parents really argued. It was about her getting into a fight at school, but then it shifted from their concern about her to their frustration with each other. It ended with slamming doors and muttered apologies phrased to blame the other into the crown of her head. Things only escalated from there, until she was being forced to pick between them and then being dragged half way across the world for a fresh start.
“You could be. You can’t just draw your sword on a stalker.” Mira said. Zoey could hear the strain. She appreciated the effort Mira was putting in to not shout.
Rumi was trying too, Zoey knew she was, but she was wearing a turtleneck in the middle of summer again and tugging her sleeves down over her hands, so she was having a bad day. That was fine. Zoey would bunker down and weather the storm with her, and so would Mira, if she would just let them.
Zoey winced when Rumi brushed past Mira and said “I just did a couple of laps around the block. I do it all the time.”
Mira’s response was immediate and loud in a way that made Zoey’s spine tingle unpleasantly. “You were gone for hours—and that wouldn’t make it better even if you weren't! Why won’t you just talk to us?!”
A small voice whispered at the back of Zoey’s mind. An echo of an argument nearly a decade old.
“Can’t you just talk to her?”
“You’re the one who wants a divorce. I’m not breaking her heart for you.”
“That’s not-"
“What is it, then?! Do you just want her to hate me so she doesn’t hate you?!”
Rumi kept walking. Mira followed. Zoey considered staying on the couch, but the idea of hearing the argument through the walls was worse. She unfurled and trailed after them.
Mira’s voice was calmer when she said: “Rumi.” Zoey really would have to kiss her for this.
Rumi’s hand stilled on the door handle to her bedroom.
Zoey would have to kiss them both. Encouragement to keep trying, even when they missed the mark a little.
“I’m sorry.” Rumi said. She didn’t turn around to look at them. “I know. It’s just-...” Her hand tightened on the handle for a moment.
When Zoey spoke up they both startled a little. In the past when they’d argued she’d leave the apartment, or get her headphones and stay in her room until one of them sent a text to say they'd sorted it out. She was trying to be better, too. “Does the turtleneck have anything to do with it?”
Rumi’s other hand shot up to the fabric at her throat. “...Kinda. I spoke to Celine.” Mira was already bristling and Rumi didn’t even have to turn around to know, because she quickly added, “It wasn’t anything bad, it was just a lot. I needed to run it off. I didn't mean to be gone for that long.”
“You don’t need to keep defending her.” Mira said, almost pleadingly.
Things had been complicated with Celine lately, even past Mira’s kneejerk reaction to resist authority. Celine knew that they knew, and she also knew they weren’t happy about how they had to find out. Worse, she’d done a real number on Rumi, intentionally or not. Saving Zoey and Mira’s lives wasn’t enough to pay off the debt for ruining Rumi’s.
The problem was that Rumi seemed to think ruining her life was an acceptable price for giving her Zoey and Mira, so they were at a stalemate.
“I’m not! I-...” Rumi took a breath, “Look, I’m tired, and I really need a shower. Can we do this tomorrow?”
The silence stretched. Mira and Rumi didn’t need to speak, and Zoey didn’t need to hear it. She could see the conversation hovering between them. I’m not angry, I’m worried, and I know. I’m sorry. I love you.
Eventually Mira relented, raising her hands in surrender and taking a step back. “Fine. Your dinner's in the fridge. Don't eat it cold, it tastes better warm.”
Rumi's expression softened, then turned wounded. She pulled her door shut with some force, but at the last second she stuck the heel of her foot out and cushioned it so it quietly clicked closed instead of slamming.
Zoey thanked her silently. She looked at Mira. Her shoulders were set and she could see the tiny muscle movements in her jaw and neck that told her she was grinding her teeth.
She did the only thing she knew how to do. She tried to ease the tension with a joke.
“She’s being demoted to big spoon tonight.” Mira looked at her and quirked an eyebrow. Zoey continued. “Because-... because she likes to be the little spoon?”
Mira blinked slowly, then gave a thin laugh that set Zoey’s teeth on edge. “Oh, right.”
The thing was, Zoey knew they weren’t really angry—at her or each other. She knew what anger looked like on them, the way it shaped their eyes and the snarls of their mouths. This was something quieter than that, frustration aimed inwards at themselves instead of outwards at each other. Still, her throat was unpleasantly tight, and she’d never been that good at reading people. Someone like Mira would’ve been able to read the writing on the wall long before her parents divorced.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Eventually, Mira said “I’m gonna head to bed. Coming?”
It felt dangerously like picking a side even though it wasn’t an argument, but Rumi had shut her door, and Mira’s brief flash of anger had simmered into regret, and if she didn’t go with Mira now she was going to spend the night alone. There was nobody’s company she wanted less than her own tonight, so she followed.
They got ready for bed quietly. Mira left the door slightly ajar and Zoey recognised it as an invitation for Rumi, space for her to decide if she wanted to sleep alone or with them.
When Mira slid under the blankets behind her and pulled her flush against her chest she wondered, briefly, if the reason Mira hadn’t laughed was because she liked to be the big spoon. Or, no, Mira did like to be the little spoon sometimes. It was probably just a bad joke.
The tyres in Zoey’s head wouldn’t stop spinning in place. Worse, Mira kept fidgeting in that twitchy way she did when she was annoyed about something and it was keeping her awake. She knew she wasn’t really all that annoyed at Rumi, so… that left her, didn’t it?
Zoey hadn’t backed her up when Rumi came home. She hadn’t backed Rumi up, either, she’d just let them argue.
Shit.
If she asked Mira if she was angry and she wasn’t then it’d upset her, because she was trying so hard to control her temper, and jokes weren’t working, so.
So…
So she rolled over to face Mira, and when Mira made a soft hmm? sound she kissed her, first on her mouth, then on the corner of her lips, then on her jaw. She slipped a hand under the fabric of Mira’s vest and ran her fingers over the soft, warm skin of her waist. Mira’s muscles twitched, orchestrated by the gentle pressure Zoey was applying.
Mira huffed a laugh and lifted her hands to cup Zoey’s face and kiss her back, tasting faintly of toothpaste.
Then she squished Zoey’s cheeks between her palms firmly, pushing Zoey’s lips out into a pout.
“Do you just not have an off switch?” She said, voice rough with exhaustion but eyes bright, even in the dark of the room.
“Do you-” Zoey started, but she couldn’t speak properly with Mira still squishing her face. She had to wriggle her head back before she tried again. “Do you want me to?”
It was a joke. Sort of.
Mira hummed as if she was considering her answer. “No,” she said, pressing another kiss to Zoey’s lips, then, “I like that you’re insatiable. Gives me something to work towards.”
Something sparked lazily in Zoey’s stomach, but the tingling in her back was still stubbornly present.
Zoey ran her hand up Mira’s side until her thumb grazed the swell of her breast, then slowly traced down to the waistband of her shorts with her nails, coaxing a shiver out of her. She pressed a slow kiss to her throat and ran her thumb under the hem of her underwear, featherlight and teasing.
Mira exhaled shakily as Zoey nipped at the skin of her neck, not enough to leave a mark, but the promise of one. She felt Mira relax all at once under her palms.
Guilt pressed its teeth against her trembling heart, but it wasn’t biting, not just yet.
Mira cupped her jaw again and pulled her back into a kiss. She bit at Zoey’s lower lip and Zoey opened her mouth compliantly, whining softly when the kiss deepened and Mira ran her hand firmly up her shirt, fingers digging pleasantly into the curve of her spine.
Zoey hesitated. She didn't want to do this. She'd done this before with her exes, after an argument, or if they'd had a bad day, or when she was just scared that if she tried to fix things with her words she'd make them worse. So she offered herself up instead. It wasn't like she didn't also get enjoyment out of it in the end.
But then sex had started to feel transactional, like it was something she had to do to keep them happy. She didn't want to do that to Mira or Rumi.
Mira pulled back.
She tried to chase the kiss half out of instinct alone, but Mira pulled her hand from under her shirt and moved it to her shoulder, gentle but commanding. Zoey shrank back, thoroughly chastised, but she didn’t look away.
Her brow was furrowed, eyes searching Zoey’s. After a moment she said, “What’s wrong?”
Zoey answered too quickly, too sharply, she knew it sounded wrong the second it left her mouth, “Nothing! Everything’s awesome.”
Mira pulled away more. The guilt sunk its teeth in and Zoey withdrew her hand, too.
“Talk to me, Zoey.” she said, reaching back to turn on her lamp. Zoey wished she hadn’t, because now she’d been caught and had nowhere to hide. The prickling in her spine had moved up to the base of her neck and was making her head feel tingly.
She caved almost immediately.
“I’m sorry. I-... I shouldn’t-...”
“Did you not want to?” Mira asked slowly.
Instead of answering, Zoey picked at the cuticle of her thumb. It was an answer anyway. Mira kept looking at her, face bereft of anger but filled with concern.
“Why did you start if you didn’t want it?”
It would have been easier to handle if it had been an accusation—she could've said she changed her mind, and Mira would've accepted that—but it wasn’t. In the end, that worry was what made Zoey tell the truth.
“I just-... you were upset. I didn’t know if it was with me or Rumi, and I-... didn’t want you to go to sleep angry at us.” She mumbled, as if the room wasn’t so silent that Mira would have heard it even if she’d whispered.
Mira looked stricken. It was an immediate reaction, and Zoey had to fight the urge to try and soothe it, because it was her fault and if she did that she’d make it worse. Mira rolled out of bed and walked to the door.
Zoey’s heart was jackrabbiting in her chest.
As if she could hear it from across the room, Mira looked over her shoulder at Zoey and said “Stay there. I’m not angry, I just-... stay there, okay?”
Zoey sat up in the bed and tucked her knees up to her chest. It was muffled by the walls, but she could hear scraps of a conversation.
“Rumi.”
“Tomorrow-... …-please.”
“-...not that. It’s about-...”
“...-she okay?”
“Just-...”
Her stomach twisted. The prickling had turned into a buzzing under her skin, the kind she got when she knew she’d fucked up beyond repair. She could see an echo of her younger self hyperventilating and tried to be proud that she wasn’t that far gone just yet.
But it was getting fucking close.
When Mira returned it was with a slightly shaken looking Rumi in tow, dressed in pyjamas—long sleeved, Zoey noticed. She was immediately at Zoey’s side, putting a hand on her shoulder and brushing her hair out of her face. Mira sat cross-legged on the bed in front of them and rested her elbows on her knees.
All Zoey could manage was a weak “I’m sorry.”
Rumi looked from Zoey to Mira and raised her eyebrows. “Did something happen?”
Mira ducked her head a little—she looked like she felt guilty too, and that made Zoey’s heart lurch—and said “It’s a conversation we all need to have, because that can’t happen again. With any of us.” Her tone was all authority, but there was an uncertain waiver underneath it. Zoey looked down and nodded meekly.
Rumi asked, voice pitched with worry, “What can’t happen again?”
Zoey felt Mira’s eyes on her and picked at her cuticles some more. Then, eventually, “I just-... I thought Mira was upset with you, or me, and I didn’t-... want her to go to sleep angry. I-...”
It dawned on her why Mira looked so wounded all at once. She looked up at Mira, then at Rumi.
“Mira didn’t start it, I did. She didn’t do anything wrong.” she said quickly.
Rumi looked between Mira and Zoey again, then raised her eyebrows. Zoey watched her open and close her mouth while she tried to find a sentence she could stomach saying.
She landed on: “Are you-... are you both okay?”
Zoey could only nod, so Mira spoke up. “Yeah. We didn’t get very far. I’m more worried about-... Zoey, have you done that with us before? Fucked us because you thought it would, like, calm us down? Not because you wanted it?”
She was shaking her head before the words came tumbling out of her mouth. “No! No, never. Not-... not with you. I don’t know why-... it was so stupid, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again, I was gonna stop anyway, it didn’t-... I felt guilty, straight away. I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t know what she’d said to make them both stare at her the way they were, eyes wide in alarm.
“Slow down, go back. Not with us?” Rumi asked.
Zoey overcorrected. “Yeah, I mean, with exes. I’ve never- I’d never-...”
Mira took Zoey’s face in her hands again to steady her.
“That’s not what she meant, take a breath,” Mira’s voice was low and soothing, and Zoey found herself matching her uneven breathing to the slow and steady rise and fall of Mira’s chest. When Zoey was a little calmer, Mira spoke again. “You’re not getting why we’re worried.”
“I just-… I want to be clear here. Are you saying you soothed your exes with sex, even when you didn’t want it?” Rumi asked, slow and cautious.
Zoey shook her head in Mira’s hands. “No! I mean-... yes? But I started it. They never-... it was my choice. Some of them were assholes, but not that kind of asshole.” She expected them to relax, but they didn’t, so she continued. “It was just something that worked. Like, not to brag, but I’m good at it. You both know I’m good at it,” there was a brief moment where both Rumi and Mira nodded slightly in agreement, and Zoey clung to it desperately, anything to smooth this over. She laughed, high and frantic, and said, “See? See? I eat pussy like a champ, so-”
“Don’t do that.” Mira warned, letting her hands fall from her face.
Zoey paused and tilted her head a little, “...Do what?”
“Minimise this by joking. I’m not mad at you, Zoey, but this is serious. You could’ve gotten hurt. I could’ve hurt you.”
“No, no, it wouldn’t have been your fault, I-... Mira, I’m so sorry.” Tears burned at the back of Zoey’s eyes. She didn’t want to cry. It felt manipulative to cry when she was the one who’d fucked up. She knew if she spoke again she wouldn’t be able to stop, so she stayed quiet and tried not to shrink under the matching intensity of their stares.
“You don’t need to diffuse every situation. We’re not going to break up over a disagreement.” Rumi said with the finality of someone who’d finally solved the puzzle. She was right. Zoey knew she was right. “You don’t have to set yourself on fire to keep us warm.”
Zoey covered her mouth and choked on a sob anyway. She was flanked by heat immediately, Mira wrapping an arm around her shoulder and resting her chin on the top of her head and Rumi holding her around her waist tightly.
“We don’t need more from you than you give willingly. You’re enough as you are.” Mira said into her hair.
Zoey tried to take a deep breath, but it caught on another sob and her words came out clumsy. “I’m sorry, I’m trying not to, I don’t want- I know you’d never hurt me so-... a-and I wouldn’t, normally, but-... today was just-... I got in my head and-...”
Rumi wiped a tear away with her thumb gently and pressed a kiss to Zoey’s cheek. She said, “Slow down.” There was a hint of fond exasperation. It steadied Zoey’s speeding thoughts.
Mira said “You don’t need to always be the funny one. We love you just the same even when you’re having a shitty time.”
“I know, I know, I don’t-... I don’t want you to feel bad.” Zoey’s words came a little clearer this time.
Rumi sighed, fonder still. “I mean, yeah, I feel bad when you feel bad. When you’re upset it’s like the sun’s gone away, every time, but that just means I want to cheer you up, not that you have to cheer up for me.”
Zoey hiccuped softly. The buzzing from earlier was turning into a steady headache. She whimpered when Rumi swung her feet over the side of the bed, but she kissed Zoey’s temple and said “I’m just getting you a drink.”
With one side of her now cold and empty Zoey tucked herself wholly into Mira. Mira shifted to make more room for her, pulling her further into her lap. For a moment the only sound was the rustling of Mira’s hand rubbing soothing patterns into the back of Zoey’s shirt.
Rumi returned a few minutes later, bottle of water in one hand, cat mug in the other—Mira had bought it for her a few years ago, for no reason other than ‘they painted the eyes wrong and it looks goofy, thought you’d like it’, and it had been Zoey’s favourite ever since.
Zoey peered at it and untangled herself from Mira to take the mug in both hands. The scent hit her immediately. Peppermint tea. She looked at Rumi questioningly and Rumi shrugged with a smile. “I get all sick and headachey after I cry.”
In her periphery, she saw Mira raise her eyebrows, then her expression softened into something so warm and loving that it made Zoey’s heart skip a beat even though it was aimed at Rumi, not her. She gave Zoey’s shoulders a squeeze.
She drank the tea in small sips—under frequent gentle reminders from both Rumi and Mira—and relaxed in increments. When it was empty Rumi replaced the mug with the bottle of water and made her take a few sips of that too before she put it on the bedside table, then pulled the blankets up over the three of them and nuzzled into the space between Zoey’s shoulderblades. Mira draped an arm over both of them, pulling Rumi closer until Zoey had a firm pressure on her from all sides.
The first time they’d all cuddled like this had been when Zoey was sixteen, freshly recruited by Celine and eager to prove she was worth any trouble she might cause. They’d loved each other from day one, but it had been a tense, tenuous thing; a feral hound who only knew how to bite and be bitten, a guard dog let indoors for the first time, unsure if she was allowed to enjoy the comfort it offered, and a puppy still reeling from a kick but already bounding back over in case this time the offering was a hug.
Sometimes they were still that. The love between them was a simple beast, pure in a way few things ever were, but they couldn’t help stepping on each other’s feet.
They were getting better, though. They were trying so hard.
Inch by inch, Mira was learning that her teeth could press down but they’d never break the skin of them, and they weren’t going to be scared away by the way she bared her fangs.
Rumi was learning that the space on the bed was left empty for her, that she didn’t have to wait for permission to join, that she’d already earned her seat at the table and she didn’t have to cower under it and beg for scraps.
Zoey was learning that she didn’t have to plead and bargain for the door to be left open, because they’d given her the key. No matter how far they locked themselves down she was never barred entry, she was always welcome to follow.
They were each an empty cup grasped in a thirsty hand waiting for the next drop of affection, but every ounce of love they received they shared equally until they didn't have to worry about where the next one would come from.
It would come from them. It would always come from them.